I'm currently in the market for a new batter head for my bass. At the moment, I have an EMAD2 and I don't really care for it. I hear a plastic sound, not the bass drum. I have tuned it at JAW and have tried it a bit tighter - this results in lots of undesirable pedal rebound.

The main genre I play is Rock/Classic Rock.

Also, besides batter head recommendations, I'd like to find out more about possibly changing the reso head, too. Where do I go with that?

Remo Powerstroke 3 batter and reso. If it's too much ring go to the fabric store buy some felt and cut a 2" wide piece and place it between the batter and bearing edge keeping it tight as you tune the head. That will take a little of the overtone out. That's a trick that's been done by decades. I've done this on two kits and it sounds awesome

The microphone is on one of those short desktop stands, next to my bass drum pedal, pointing up at about 40-degrees to where the beater makes impact. So in this recording you're hearing the bass drum as it would sound to you as you play it (I'm so happy I finally tried this I'm telling everybody all about it ;)

It has really nice attack. Good thinking. Is that a 24" bass drum? Or 26"?

It's a 26, and I'm totally diggin' it. If anything, when I'm playing soft-to-medium, I'm working even less, allowing me to 'dance' a bit more on the pedal as opposed to having to work it all the time. And when I slam, there's certainly enough body and tone there to shake the walls.

I presently use Evans heads exclusively so GMAD on batter, no mufflers and any Reso head which I double stick tape the small muffler ring from batter onto the reso. No muffling at all in a birch 22x20. I have also used the Superkick II In the past on a maple kit and it was quite good.

EMAD2 with a kick port on the stock reso head and no extra muffling . The kick drum is 22" Catalina Ash. I really like the sound, but I don't think it will work for a very fast double kick style of playing. So depends what are you after. But I really like the impact that the kick port gives.

EMAD2 with a kick port on the stock reso head and no extra muffling . The kick drum is 22" Catalina Ash. I really like the sound, but I don't think it will work for a very fast double kick style of playing. So depends what are you after. But I really like the impact that the kick port gives.

Why is that? the material the drum is made from has nothing to do with whether it can be used for double bass.